BERLIN (AP) – An al-Qaida suspect was freed Monday after the country’s high court blocked his extradition to Spain, ruling that a European Union-wide arrest warrant – heralded as a key step in the fight against terrorism – does not yet comply with German law.

The ruling comes as European governments are scrambling to enact legislation following the deadly bombings in London. It also deals a blow to the EU’s post-Sept. 11 counterterrorism plans and highlights the difficulties Europe faces in rushing through anti-terror laws frowned upon by the courts and at times angrily contested by civil libertarians.

The Karlsruhe-based Federal Constitutional Court released Mamoun Darkazanli, who has German and Syrian citizenship, after deciding that Germany’s version of the European arrest warrant introduced last August violates the country’s constitution and a suspect’s basic rights.

Darkazanli is among 41 suspects, including Osama bin Laden, indicted by Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon, who has been investigating the al-Qaida terror network. He faces up to 12 years in a Spanish prison if convicted of membership in a terrorist organization.

Darkazanli, 46, appears in a 1999 wedding video with two of the three Sept. 11, 2001 suicide pilots – Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah – who lived and studied in Hamburg along with lead hijacker Mohamed Atta.

The United States has labeled Darkazanli’s Hamburg-based trading company a front for terrorism. He appeared on U.S. suspect lists after Sept. 11, but has denied any links to bin Laden or the attacks.

Specifically, the German court said the country’s legislature failed to provide a mechanism for appeal when making the EU legislation national law, and also had not gone far enough in considering suspects’ fundamental rights.

German Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries called the verdict “a blow for the government in its efforts and fight against terrorism,” and said the government would submit a revised form of the law within four to six weeks.

EU spokesman Martin Selmayr said that although the ruling was a setback, the European arrest warrant – a system designed to allow the swift cross-border handover of terror suspects – was working well in most countries, and that the court’s decision affected Germany alone.

“There is no change to be made at the (European) community level,” he said in Brussels, Belgium.

Still, Poland had a similar problem with the European arrest warrant, when its high court ruled in April that the measure violated the country’s constitutional ban on the extradition of Polish citizens abroad. The ruling was put on hold for 18 months to let legislators correct the problem.

Italy in April became the last EU country to adopt the warrant, which was supposed to have been adopted by the end of 2003. The delay proved a major embarrassment to Premier Silvio Berlusconi’s government as leading prosecutors complained it was hampering efforts to combat terrorism.

Otherwise, the warrant has been an apparent success, with the latest EU study in February showing 2,603 warrants had been issued up to September 2004. They led to the arrest of 653 people and the extradition of 104, with the average extradition time reduced from 270 days to 45.

The arrest warrant was one of the most important post-Sept. 11 counterterrorism measures adopted by the EU, which also introduced a raft of others including stricter banking rules to hamper money laundering, better cooperation among intelligence and police agencies, and the creation of a European counterterrorism coordinator.

Following the July 7 attacks in London that killed at least 56 people, Britain said it would introduce even more anti-terrorism legislation, while Italy discussed a package of measures last week.

German police questioned Darkazanli shortly after Sept. 11. But he was freed for lack of evidence and continued to live in Hamburg.

Darkazanli made no comments to reporters as he was released from a Hamburg jail, where he had been held since October.

His wife, Brigitte Darkazanli, reached at the couple’s Hamburg apartment by telephone after the verdict, said she would be glad to have her husband home.

“When one is sitting innocent in prison, it’s a terrible thing,” she told The Associated Press. “He didn’t have anything to do with any part of the whole story.”